Content:

1. Editorial

  • A year after, or Quo Vadis ESEE - Part II

2. News from ESEE and its members

  • ESEE Board Elections coming soon
  • News from Ukraine
  • The World Environmental Constitution idea advancement on the international arena
  • News from the United Kingdom
  • News from Romania

3. Other news

  • Mistaking Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth - Appeal to Students
  • Nobel Prize for Elinor Ostrom

4. Hot topic

  • Sustainable use of resources - the discussion is entering a new phase

5. Events

  • Littoral 2010 – "Adapting to global change at the coast: Leadership, Innovation, and Investment"
  • Urban Environmental Pollution - UEP 2010
  • Resilient Cities 2010
  • Planet Earth Lisbon 2009
  • ISEE 2010 (2nd Call for Papers)
  • Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (YHYS) Autumn Colloquium 2009
  • International Workshop on "Fairness and the Commons: Socio-economic Strategies and Resource Dynamics"
  • 12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) - Call for papers
  • Growth in Transition - International Conference

6. Job openings

  • Full Professor of Public Policy and Governance
  • Assistant Professor in Social Metabolism
  • Environmental economist at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee
  • Stellenausschreibung ISOE - Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung (german)
  • Postdoc position in Umea

7. Publications

  • Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Human Wellbeing - An Ecological and Economic Perspective

1. Editorial:

A year after, or Quo Vadis ESEE - Part II
by Tatiana Kluvankova-Oravska

A year after the collapse of global banks, it is becoming evident that rather than a short-term shock, the ongoing crisis is being seen as a failure of the global economic system. Moreover, it is seen as a crisis of value systems AND economic sciences.

Following the words of Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Laureate (2008), in New York Times (September 2, 2009), the petition "Revitalising Economics After the Crash" (www.ipetition.com) has so far been signed by more than 1,500 academics around the world. Krugman's appeal points at the profession’s blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failure of market economy. He stresses that "...economists mistook beauty of mathematics to construct idealised vision of an economy in which universal rationality plays a central role. This unfortunately led to the ignorance of limits of rationality but also overall society substance, in particular the role of institutions, cultural, social and historical interconnections."

Ecological economics is poised to play an important role in addressing these challenges. In more than 10 years of its existence, the ESEE has argued strongly against the concept of neo-liberalism, supported this position with a long tradition of methodological diversity, addressing conceptual and policy problems of socio-ecological sustainability.

In my ESEE newsletter editorial in late 2007, titled Quo Vadis ESEE? I expressed a concern for the emerging need to cross boundaries of social sciences and foster research orientation towards transition to sustainability, incorporating ecological and social concerns into economic analysis. I concluded with a suggestion of “Navigating the transition to sustainability” as an opportunity that can address research interests of the ESEE community. I am proud to say that it had influenced the orientation of the 8th ESEE Conference in Ljubljana, which eventually was titled: "Transformation, innovation and Adaptation for Sustainability - Integrating Natural and Social Sciences."

How will the ESEE community respond to Krugman’s appeal, or Quo Vadis ESEE Part II? How can we address the needs of this changing and vulnerable world in future research across natural and social sciences? I see the forthcoming ISEE 2010 Conference "Advancing Sustainability in a Time of Crisis" as a promising opportunity to address these concerns.

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2. News from ESEE and its members:

ESEE Board Elections coming soon

On the behave of the Election Committee we are pleased to announce ESEE election for the ESEE President, both Vice Presidents, and seven other Board members. List of candidates with their statements and endorsers can be downloaded here.

First time in the ESEE history election will be taking place electronic on the web site of ISEE between October 19 to October 21, 2009. Further information about the elections will be provided to all members via email.

Voting for ESEE representatives provides an opportunity to influence the direction of the Society and Ecological Economics in Europe.

News from Ukraine

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ratified (04.09.2009) the Protocol on the conservation and sustainable use of biological and landscape diversity to the Framework Convention for the protection and sustainable development of the Carpathians, signed in Kyiv on May 22, 2003.

The protocol is part of the Carpathian Convention, ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2004. Because of its ratification, the sequential step is the implementation of the Carpathian Convention and the resulting need to consolidate efforts to suspend "the degradation of bio-and landscape diversity of the Carpathians, sustainable use of natural resources".

In particular, according to the Protocol, each Party at its national territory shall take measures to improve and ensure the continuity and connection of natural and semi-natural habitats in the Carpathians, thus supporting the proliferation and migration of populations of wild species, especially large predators, and the exchange of genetic material between these populations.

Together with the provisions of the Carpathian Convention, the Protocol is a legal instrument for the development, harmonization and strengthening of the necessary environmental policies, strategies and measures for the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biological and landscape diversity in the Carpathian region, the integration of conservation objectives and sustainable use of biological and landscape diversity and other sectoral policies. So, Ukraine is now on the way towards the implementation of the Carpathian Biodiversity Protocol.

The World Environmental Constitution idea advancement on the international arena

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko suggests creating the World Environmental Constitution that would become a basis for the new global environmental policy in the 21st century. His video-address to the Summit on Climate Change 2009 in New York is available on the presidential official website. "Ukraine calls on the world to hear this demand and to get down to an extremely complicated but ultimately necessary, wise and comprehensive task of formulating the modern code of human existence on the Earth, a document composing the common norms and obligations which would be the World Environmental Constitution," President Yushchenko said (www.ukrinform.ua/eng/order/?id=170311).

According to him, the Environmental Constitution could become the foundation of the new global environmental policy for the 21th century, defining the commitments of the people and nations with respect to the nature and taking care of the rational management of resources, preventing pollution and environmental destruction. "We elaborated continuous chain of the yearly inventories of the green house emissions and strictly stick to the National Implementation Plan. The successful conclusion of the intergovernmental talks on the new post-Kyoto mechanisms is currently our common primary task," the President added.

The elaboration and adoption of the World Environmental Constitution (WEC) is a concept with potential to promote sustainable development and conservation of our common heritage. Originally the idea of creating such a global act was proposed by Yuriy Tunytsya, Rector of the Ukrainian National Forestry University, member of the National Academy of the Sciences of Ukraine at the conference on the problems of federalism in the United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU), which took place in the Hofstra University (New York, 1992).

It should be mentioned occasionally that the idea of the WEC was presented by Prof Tunytsya and supported by participants at the biennial conference of the ISEE "Ecological Sustainability and Human Well-being" (New Dehli, Dec 2006).

Scientific approaches and practical steps which should be done towards the implementation of the Ukrainian initiative on the development of the World Environmental Constitution Economic, along with the political, institutional and legal aspects for negative climate change consequences prevention, avoidance and mitigation will be discussed at the conference "Global climate change: threats for humanity and mechanisms of prevention" that will be held on November 11-13, 2009 in the Ukrainian National Forestry University (UNFU), 103 General Chuprynka str., Lviv, 79057, Ukraine. The conference flyer can be downloaded here.

News from the United Kingdom

The REDD-ALERT (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation through Alternative Land uses in Rainforests of the Tropics) project, funded by the European Commission under Framework 7 (FP7), officially started on May, 2009. The project, totalling €4.5M, is focusing on ways in which reductions in the rate of tropical deforestation can help to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, thereby making a major contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process leading up to successor to the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, and contributing to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. Further details of the project are at www.redd-alert.eu.

The project is led by Dr Robin Matthews (Science Leader and Project Co-ordinator) from the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen, and also involves Dr Innocent Bakam, Dr Klaus Glenk, Dr Shibu Muhammed, Dr Maria Nijnik, and Dr Laura Poggio, with further recruitment in progress. For vacancies available at the Macaulay Institute see: macaulay.ac.uk/jobs.

In addition to the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, the consortium includes the Université Catholique de Louvain, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the Georg August University of Göttingen, along with members of the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins, which includes the four international CGIAR research institutes, ICRAF in Kenya, CIFOR in Indonesia, IITA in Nigeria, and CIAT in Columbia, as well as four national research institutes, the Indonesian Soils Research Institute, the Research Centre for Forest Ecology and Environment in Vietnam, the Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement in Cameroon, and the Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Extension Agraria in Peru.

The kick-off meeting of the project, organised by the World Agroforestry Centre, was held in Sumatra in Indonesia on May 25-29. The annual ASB Global Steering Group meeting was held in Washington D.C. on Sep 26-28.

News from Romania

A session of short PowerPoint presentations took place on 7 October 2009 at the Centre for Sustainable Exploitation of Ecosystems (CESEE) by A.I. Cuza University, Iasi, Romania, under the title 'Antarctic, the continent of the future is losing its icecap', within the International Polar Week series 'What happens at the Poles affects us all'. Representative from the Romanian 'Law-Racovita' Station in Antarctica presented the situation in the Antarctic environment. Other presentations dealt with the ecological, social and economic aspects of climate changes. Priority audience was the student community (more than 40 students attended and left their contacts) but also academics and the wider public. Further details can be found on the announcement page of the University - www.uaic.ro/uaic/bin/view/Main/?language=en. Related information is available by the International Polar Year - www.scar.org/ipy.

A guide for adaptation to climate changes in Romania is available on the website of the Romanian Ministry of Environment, www.mmediu.ro/departament_mediu_en/climate_change.htm.

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3. Other news:

Mistaking Mathematical Beauty for Economic Truth - Appeal to Students

The web plea/petition in support of the words below by Paul Krugman now has over 1300 signatures, the majority of which are qualified academics.

But only 3% of the signatories are undergraduate students. It is kindly asked to support this statement. (signing is free, and the website can be left before making a donation)

"Few economists saw our current crisis coming, but this predictive failure was the least of the field's problems. More important was the profession's blindness to the very possibility of catastrophic failures in a market economy ... the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth ... economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets, this time gussied up with fancy equations ... Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets – especially financial markets – that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation. ... When it comes to the all-too-human problem of recessions and depressions, economists need to abandon the neat but wrong solution of assuming that everyone is rational and markets work perfectly." (New York Times, September 2nd, 2009)

Sign "Revitalizing Economics After the Crash" here.

Progress on the petition will be announced to the international press in October.

Nobel Prize for Elinor Ostrom

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in the memory of Alfred Nobel has for the year 2009 been awarded to institutional economists Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson. Elinor Ostrom a key note speaker of ESEE 2007 and THEMES summer school in Slovakia inspired number of ecological economists. In particular with the theories of General Principles for Robust Governance or Multitier Framework for Analysing SES and other contribution to the interdisciplinary research across natural and social sciences. Dear Lin, thank you and congratulation!

Tatiana Kluvánková-Oravská

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4. Hot topic:

Sustainable use of resources - the discussion is entering a new phase
by Nina Eisenmenger

In September the World Resource Forum was held in Davos, Switzerland, and brought together leading scientists and political stakeholders. The topic of discussion was resource use, current trends and necessary steps towards sustainability. What did Davos bring about and is the story of "resource use" entering a next round?

Resource use and dematerialisation were fast emerging research topics in the 1990s but then lost ground and in terms of public interest fell behind other subjects such as climate change. At the beginning of this century, the topic ran the risk of being cut down to a mere accounting tool of statistical value; but then the issue entered the political arena: the OECD initiated a recommendation "Material Flows and Resource Productivity" (2004), the G8 countries agreed upon the 3R Action Plan "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" (2004), the EU launched the "Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Resources" (2005), and most recently the UN established the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management "Resource Panel" (2007). In parallel, strategic resources such as oil and several metals experienced significant price increases from 2000 onwards. By that resource availability and the security of supply even entered the focus of industries and business people.

Thus, sustainable use of resources is back on the agenda. The overall aim in this regard is to reduce the total amount of resources used and to decouple resource use from economic development. The underlying accounting tool is Material and Energy Flow Accounting (MEFA). In most discussions sustainable use of resources is linked to the reduction of its environmental impacts. Political representatives even translate this into the need of just reducing environmental impacts whereas resource use needs to be a matter of stabilisation only. In the Thematic Strategy of the EU this was termed "double decoupling". In projects and contracts, researchers were then increasingly asked to measure environmental impacts and develop applicable indicators. Current approaches range from rough indicators borrowed from other discourses such as the ecological footprint to new developed indicators such as the EMC which combines MFA with LCA. However, so far no consensus on indicators or a broad basis of harmonized empirical data is available for measuring environmental impacts and cannot be expected for the near future. As a result, political policies did not yet determine any targets on environmental impacts and at the same time not on resource use as well.

The UNEP Resource Panel and also discussions at the World Resource Forum in Davos brought a shift in this story. From the available case studies no evidence could be found of reduced environmental impacts from stabilized resource use. There is even indication that various relations are possible between environmental impacts and resource use. Thus, political stakeholders now agreed to consider resource use in itself as an issue that has to be tackled. The necessary objective is absolute dematerialization, i.e. growing economic development but declining resource use. At the same time, possible targets on resource use are discussed. But what is a sustainable level of global resource use? In the declaration of the World Resource Forum 2009 we find the following: "We should seek to stabilize resource use at 6 to 10 tons per capita per year by 2050 with reductions at the top of global society and catch-up from the bottom." (World Resources Forum 2009) What would this mean? Currently, global resource use reaches around 60 billion tons (as compared to 7 billion tons in 1900. see Krausmann et al. 2009) or 8-10 tons per capita. The goal in the WRF declaration therefore means a stabilization of global resource use at current per capita levels. Broken down on a country basis, this shows the severity of this claim: per capita resource use on the country level varies broadly. In 2000 the former EU15 use 16 t/cap/yr, the USA 29 t/cap/yr, Japan 14 t/cap/yr, India 6 t/cap/yr, China 8 t/cap/yr, some African countries only 4-5 t/cap/yr. (source: Social Ecology data base 2009) A global target of 8 t/cap/yr therefore means a serious change in the social metabolism. Some developing countries can catch up on the global average, but all industrialized countries and also some rapidly developing and transition countries would have to cut their resource use considerably. For Europe this would mean reducing the current resource use by half. There is no example yet, where we have seen a reduction of resource use of this amount in the past 30 years, in the former EU15 countries we have not even examples for absolute decoupling at all (with the exception of Germany and the UK due to structural changes and the shut down of heavy industry). In addition, all the figures above did not yet considered a growing world population. If we take UN population projections and multiply them with the 8 t/cap/yr, we get a global resource use of around 70 billion tons in 2050. Nearly a 20 % increase compared to levels in 2000. If we consider this as unsustainable, then we need either even lower per capita resource use or slower population growth.

In any case, the challenges in the future are immense. A metabolic transition is needed ... any suggestions are welcome!

World Resources Forum 2009. www.worldresourcesforum.org/wrf_declaration
Krausmann, Fridolin, Simone Gingrich, Nina Eisenmenger, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl, Marina Fischer-Kowalski. 2009. Growth in global materials use, GDP and population during the 20th century. In: Ecological Economics, 68 (10): 2696-2705

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5. Events:

Littoral 2010 – "Adapting to global change at the coast: Leadership, Innovation, and Investment"

The Littoral 2010 is an international conference for researchers and practitioners. It is organised by CoastNet and Eurocoast, and is to be held from 21st to 23rd of September 2010 at the Royal Geographical Society, London.

Further information about this first announcement is available from: www.coastnet.org.uk/Littoral2010.

Please follow these links for more specific information:

Urban Environmental Pollution - UEP 2010

This new conference will take place at the Westin Boston Waterfront in Boston, USA, June 20-23, 2010.

It will focus on the latest information about urban pollution problems and what measures can be taken to overcome obstacles to sustainability and life quality. The role of urban vegetation in storm water retention, pollution and temperature reduction, green roofs, re-surfacing buildings, reducing albedo, reducing asthma and other advances will be presented.

Contributions for oral and poster presentation at the conference are invited. The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 1, 2010.

Online submission will open shortly at www.uep2010.com.

Resilient Cities 2010

ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the City of Bonn are pleased to announce the congress Resilient Cities 2010, the Annual Global Forum on Urban Resiliency and Adaptation to Climate Change. It will be held from 28-30 May 2010 in Bonn, Germany.

A great opportunity that shouldn't be missed for partners from all sectors to share experiences and research outcomes, to overcome knowledge gaps and to discuss and identify jointly solutions and impulses for innovation.

Registration to the Congress and on-line call for papers submission will both be available in October 2009.

More information can be found here and will soon be available on www.iclei.org/bonn2010.

To register your interest, please write to bonn2010@iclei.org.

Planet Earth Lisbon 2009

Hosted by the Government of Portugal, a major Planet Earth Event will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from 20-22nd of November 2009. This Event (PELE2009) will both review the results of the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) during its operational period and highlight new initiatives built on the IYPE legacy.

The International Year of Planet Earth is a joint initiative by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and UNESCO and was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as a UN International Year for Planet Earth. The IYPE addresses the decision-makers and the general public, through a large number of national and international events throughout the triennium (2007-2009), on geoscientific knowledge at large and how that knowledge could better help in the realization of a safer, healthier and more prosperous global society. This ambition is succinctly expressed in the IYPE’s subtitle: Earth Science for Society.

The IYPE science and outreach plans are being realized by the IYPE Secretariat in close cooperation with the 80 established IYPE National and Regional Committees who are actively employing all efforts to make this endeavor a success (see: www.yearofplanetearth.org).

Apart from ceremonial and cultural elements of the program, the PEL2009 will address issues such as Renewable Energy, Sustainable Land & Water management, and Oceans. Political leaders, captains of industry and renowned scientists will discuss on how to cope with these issues and the role that the Earth sciences could and should play. Please check the Programme on this website.

Invitations to participate have been extended to several Heads of States, Ministers and United Nations' Heads. The Event will be attended by the leaders of all 80 National Committees for IYPE and some 160 students from around the world (2 per National Committee) to assure the IYPE legacy be shared with new generations.

More Informations at www.planetearthlisbon2009.org.

ISEE 2010 (2nd Call for Papers)

The online abstract submission for the ISEE 2010 Conference "Advancing Sustainability in a Time of Crisis" to be held in Oldenburg and Bremen, Germany (22 - 25 August 2010) is now possible.

For further information related to the conference and access to the online abstract submisssion system please visit: www.isee2010.org.

The Call for Papers can be downloaded here.

Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (YHYS) Autumn Colloquium 2009

Finnish Society for Environmental Social Science (YHYS) Autumn Colloquium 2009 "Environmental governance of natural resources, the economy, and consumption" is approaching. The Colloquium will take place at the Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, on the 26th - 27th November 2009.

The keynote speakers are Arild Vatn, Inge Ropke and Marina Fischer-Kowalski.

Papers are invited to the following workshops:

  1. Roles for multiple actors in ecosystem service provision?
  2. Collaborative Environmental Policy Making - Problems and Possibilities
  3. Responsible citizenship and consumption
  4. Global Climate Governance
  5. The social making of safety, security and change in energy provisioning

For more information on the Colloquium theme and programme, please visit the web site.

Please note that the deadline for both registration and paper abstracts is the 8th of November 2009. Abstracts should be sent directly to the workshop coordinators. The registration takes place here.

International Workshop on "Fairness and the Commons: Socio-economic Strategies and Resource Dynamics"

The International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG) - a joint initiative of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini (FGC) - and the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Climate Change (CMCC), in cooperation with Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, are pleased to announce their International Workshop on "Fairness and the Commons: Socio-economic Strategies and Resource Dynamics" to be held in Venice, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, on October 19-20, 2009.

The workshop is structured around three main sessions. On the first morning, the emphasis will be placed on establishing the role of fairness motives and spatial patterns in affecting the conservation and utilization of the commons. The afternoon session will provide an opportunity to explore the resilience of coupled systems, that is of systems characterized by interactions between the environmental and the socio-economic dynamics, to endogenous (i.e. behavioral) as well as exogenous (i.e. climate change) pressures exacerbating the resource scarcity. The second day’s session aims at drawing some conclusions and identifying research directions. Particular attention will be given to the integration of behavioral experiments and environmental investigations, leading to a general discussion aimed at setting a common future research agenda.

Further information, including the final agenda, is available at www.iccgov.org.

12th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics (AHE) - Call for papers

The conference will be held at the University of Bordeaux, France, from Wednesday 7th to Saturday 10th July 2010. This year's Conference theme is "The Economy of Tomorrow". Download the call for papers here.

Building on successful recent innovation, proposals for themes are invited: connected sets of sessions providing for dialogue around a single topic. One already accepted theme - organized by Ali Douai, Andre Meunié and Bertrand Zuindeau - is about the "Transitions towards an ecological economy". The "sub-call" can be downloaded here.

Growth in Transition - International Conference

The conference will be held from 28 to 29 January 2010 in Vienna, Austria.

Background
Prosperity and quality of life call for economic strategies that are soundly financed, equitably allocated, that deal responsibly with the world's resources, while taking into account the material and immaterial needs of mankind. Such a positive future scenario cannot be put on the same level with a permanent or even exponential increase of the economic production (GDP).

Aims
We can achieve this goal by taking specific measures to alter the incentive systems and regulations of our national economies. While this is the responsibility of governments, the design of those measures must be the result of a wide public debate. The international conference in Vienna aims to start such a wide debate on "Growth in Transition" with various stakeholders and to contemplate first approaches.

Topics
"Growth in Transition" will be discussed at the conference on the basis of the following themes:

  • Money and the Financial System,
  • Growth and Resource Use,
  • Social Justice and Poverty,
  • Sustainable Deman and Supply,
  • Regional Aspects,
  • Macroeconomics for Sustainability,
  • Quality of Life/Measurement of Prosperity,
  • Work,
  • Governance.

These main topics will be discussed in key note speeches, disucssions and nine (partly parallel) sessions.

Programme, registration and discussion
A detailed conference programme and the registration form will be available at www.growthintransition.eu from end-October. We invite you to discuss the topics and questions in the run-up to the conference starting at the beginning of November at www.growthintransition.eu

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6. Job openings:

Full Professor of Public Policy and Governance

WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) is currently inviting applications for the position of a Full Professor of Public Policy and Governance.

The new professor will be based in the prospective Department of Socio-Economics. He or she is expected to cultivate an environment of excellence and interdisciplinary collaboration to augment the new Department's research, teaching, and service activities.

A strong interest in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate levels is expected. In particular, the applicant is expected to engage in the existing and new interdisciplinary Bachelor, Master and PhD Programs. Substantial teaching experience in English is required; teaching experience in German is not necessary. Non-German-speaking candidates will be expected to acquire proficiency in German over a certain period of time.

For further details about the position, please contact Professor Sigrid Stagl, phone: ++43-1-31336-5790, or email: sigrid.stagl@wu.ac.at.

The full announcement can be downloaded here.

Assistant Professor in Social Metabolism

At the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna (Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies - IFF - Alps-Adria University) headed by Marina Fischer-Kowalski the position of an assistant professor, starting in December 2009, is offered.

For more information see here.

Environmental economist at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is seeking an environmental economist to lead the development of the use of socio-economic information in their marine advisory work, particularly in support of their Marine Protected Areas Programme. It is an exciting opportunity to pioneer the use of economics into delivery of marine nature conservation policy by working closely with other economists in the UK Governments and their Agencies, and more widely with organisations in the public and private sectors. Candidates will need a high level of understanding of technical issues relating to environmental economics with skills and experience gained through education, research and/or employment including several years of post qualification experience.

This is a permanent full time post with a starting salary of £30,500 pa, with the opportunity to join the Civil Service pension arrangements, which include a valuable range of benefits. JNCC operates a flexible working policy and the annual leave allowance is 25 days per year, rising to 30 days per year after 5 years service. There are also 12 days public and privilege leave.

Applicants would normally have a degree in an appropriate subject or the equivalent level of knowledge and demonstrable good quality professional experience from working in an economics role.

Full details of the post and the application form are available on the JNCC website (www.jncc.gov.uk) or you can email recruitment@jncc.gov.uk. For further information about the post, please email Jon Davies, Marine Protected Sites Team Manager (jon.davies@jncc.gov.uk).

Non UK/EU citizens are welcome to apply; however, you should be aware that offers of employment will be subject to satisfying UK Home Office conditions.

Completed application forms should be returned to Recruitment at JNCC by email recruitment@jncc.gov.uk or sent to Recruitment, JNCC, City Road, Monkstone House, City Road, Peterborough, PE1 1JY by the closing date of 15 October 2009.

Stellenausschreibung ISOE - Institut für sozial-ökologische Forschung (german)

Das ISOE ist eine national und international tätige, gemeinnützige Forschungs- und Beratungseinrichtung der integrierten Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitsforschung mit Sitz in Frankfurt am Main. Im Fokus der Forschungsarbeit stehen komplexe gesellschaftliche Probleme nachhaltiger Entwicklung.

Das ISOE bietet seinen Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeitern verantwortungsvolle Aufgaben, die empirische und programmatische Forschung neu verbinden. Es erwarten Sie innovative Zukunftsthemen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft und ein kollegiales Arbeitsumfeld, in dem Eigenständigkeit und Eigenverantwortung gefördert werden. Neue Ideen werden unterstützt und Gestaltungsspielräume in Ihrem Arbeits- und Verantwortungsbereich eröffnet. Ihre Vergütung erfolgt in Anlehnung an BAT/TV-H.

Es wird die Bereitschaft und das Interesse an inter- und transdisziplinärer Zusammenarbeit erwartet. Außerdem werden Kompetenzen im Projektmanagement sowie einschlägige (internationale) Forschungserfahrung vorausgesetzt. Englisch beherrschen Sie sicher in Wort und Schrift.

Zum nächstmöglichen Zeitpunkt werden die folgenden Stellen besetzt:

  • Wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in "Entscheidungsunterstützungssysteme und sozial-ökologische Folgenabschätzung" im Projekt CuveWaters
  • Wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in "Transdisziplinäre Biodiversitätsforschung"
  • Promotionsstelle Politikwissenschaft/Soziologie "Governance und Institutionalisierungen"

Die vollständige Ausschreibung finden Sie auch unter www.isoe.de/profil/stellen.htm
Ihre schriftlichen Bewerbungen mit aussagekräftigen Unterlagen senden Sie bitte bis 19. Oktober 2009 an: Dr. Thomas Jahn, E-Mail: kemp@isoe.de

Postdoc position in Umea

Topic: Resource use conflicts in Northern Europe (2 years – 100%). The successful applicant is expected to contribute to a project dealing with resource conflicts related to restructuring, mining, nature protection and tourism development. Applicants with experiences and interest in one of these fields and knowledge of quantitative methods and ArcGIS are welcomed particularly. Moreover, good knowledge of Northern societies and previous work experience in the field of Northern studies are desirable (Contact: Professor Dieter K. Müller, e-mail: dieter.muller@geography.umu.se).

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7. Publications:

Biodiversity, Ecosystem Functioning, and Human Wellbeing - An Ecological and Economic Perspective
edited by Shahid Naeem, Daniel E. Bunker, Andy Hector, Michel Loreau, and Charles Perrings
  • A graduate level text which incorporates the latest developments in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, one of the most controversial and high profile areas of ecological research
  • The first volume to explore the economics of biodiversity and ecosystem services
  • Summarizes the eagerly anticipated findings of two large and highly respected scientific networks, BioMERGE and DIVERSITAS
  • Builds on the success and influence of the highly cited Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning (OUP, 2002)
  • The first volume advancing the scientific foundation of the United Nation's global environmental assessment, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, that links human well-being with the conservation of biodiversity
  • Order here

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